Posts by no1youknow

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Jdubla,

I don't mind you finding humor in my posts, it is intentional, since I don't take religion seriously.

If I am long-winded, it's because you didn't seem to get my short-winded comment, and now I must explain in greater detail.

I am surprised that, since you claim to be on neither side, you never find anything the BELIEVERS say ridiculous. I know I do, but I prefer to keep the discussion civil and debate with logic rather than dismissive labels.

But I really do think that most people who believe in the God of the Bible do so for exactly the same reasons they believed in Santa Claus when they were children. Both ideas were pounded into their heads by those they trusted, and they thought that such beliefs would be personally beneficial (presents at Christmas or heaven after death). I don't think that anyone would come up with either belief on their own: both are too far-fetched. They are both taught to children as truth. The difference is that at some point children discover that they are expected to grow out of the one belief, but not the other.

Ask the average Joe on the street why he believes in the God of the Bible, and I don't think he'll cite "fulfilled prophecy" as his reason. I think he'll say, "because that's what I was brought up to believe." How many times did we hear that at the doors?

I think the God of the Bible is like the adult version of Santa Claus. But, unfortunately, he is a VERY BAD Santa! (Like Andy in those pizza commercials).

BTW: I never said you were "out of place," you said this about yourself in your own post:

i was WAY off base here

Maybe you can add that to your list of ridiculous things said on the board: someone quoting themselves and attributing it to someone else! :-)

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Jdubla,

Ok, I can see an incidental comment I made threatens to derail this important topic again... I don't want to get off the topic, and I don't want all the rest of my last posting lost to this petty debate. But, I stand by my statement, and will defend it (and hopefully there's an end, even if you still think it ridiculous).

Yes, I am counting children as believers in Santa Claus. And, yes, I think belief in Santa is very comparable to belief in God. The former most people grow out of, the latter some people do not. There are many striking similarities between the two, and just as much reason to believe in one as the other (since both reportedly break the laws of nature).

Who "sees you when you're sleeping, and knows when you're awake"? Both.

Who rewards you for "being good"? Both.

Who is considered a benevolent "father figure"? Both.

Who is depicted as an old man with a white beard, though no one has ever really seen him? Both.

Who has been known to fly through the air on a magical conveyance? Both (see Ezekiel).

Who is intimately connected with the observance of Christmas? Both.

Who is capable of granting everyone’s wishes on a single night? Both.

Who lives in a place uninhabitable by mere mortals, surrounded by half-human creatures with magical abilities? Both.

Whose existence is taught to children by their parents in the hope that it will make them behave? Both.

Whose existence defies the laws of common sense? Both.

Could all of the above questions be answered the same way for any other two entities (other than “gods”)? None spring to my mind.

One big difference between them (to bring us back to the topic at hand) is that Santa never hurt a child or a baby, whereas Jehovah, well, you know…

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Hi Rex,

I’m not sure who you were addressing your last comments to, but I hope no one minds if I respond to them.

The original point I was making was speculation about God's intent, the veracity of those who wrote the accounts and the fact that the Amalekites....and mankind, have brought their own judgement about.

Yes, and I agreed with you as far as the veracity of the writers. I think they made up the part about God telling them to kill babies. It seems we can both agree on that. So why continue to argue about it?

I admit that there are things we'd like clarified but we have the example of Jesus Christ and His life on earth to show us what God is really like. He is the 'exact representation of God'.

So, are you saying that Jesus’ personality proves that God could not have ordered the killing of babies? If so, the Bible is not true when it says God ordered the killing of babies. If the Bible is not true, how do you know what Jesus’ personality was, assuming that the Bible is your source for that information? This appears to be circular reasoning to me, unless you are contending that the “Old Testament” is only true insofar as it reflects the spirit of the “New Testament”. But that is another whole debate, because how do you decide what the “spirit of the New Testament” is? Using this method I could easily claim that God did indeed order the killing of children in the OT by quoting Jesus’ character from the NT:

Rv:2:23: And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

So, now do we have to say that we don’t believe Revelation is true either? Do we end up just picking and choosing which parts of the Bible we like (the very few parts which aren’t immoral)? Aren’t we then proving that we ourselves know what is right and wrong without having to look it up in a book? Then why not throw out the book?

It is not me, or ex-JW-atheists in general creating a "no win situation" for you: it is your own self-contradictory stance which does this.

Your, nor any other created being can judge your creator and His actions.

But I already have, and so have you. I judged the God of the Bible’s actions as cruel, you judged them as okay (if accurately reported). Whenever you call God “good” you have judged him.

I don't know you but I have seen numerous other examples of ex-JWs turned atheist and the mantra is always the same, "Why does God allow or do, this and that"?

Well, it’s not only ex-JW’s-turned-atheists who ask these questions. Every sane individual who has ever thought about the idea of God has asked these questions. I have yet to hear a good answer. Predestination is not an acceptable answer to most people. I’m glad you’ve found comfort in it, though.

It's also a moot point since Jesus Christ lived, was killed, resurrected and confirmed His deity. Therefore any objection or scientific claim against scripture is already in error.

I don’t follow that at all, nor do I understand what it has to do with the topic under discussion.

Would it have been some comfort to the mothers of the murdered babies to know, as they watched them being run through with swords, that hundreds of years later someone named Jesus would live, die, resurrect, etc.? I doubt it.

Why does it make the question of evil “moot” to think that Jesus “confirmed his deity”? It doesn’t make evil any less evil. If Jesus’ death was supposed to end evil, why is it still here? I don’t see how this answers anything.

If we already agreed that the Bible is in error in reporting that God ordered the killing of babies, then how can we now state that “any objection… against scripture is in error”? This seems to be a contradiction.

How do you KNOW that Jesus did these things? Isn’t it all just based on a book that we have already agreed is in error? Who told you that this book is true? Is it possible that, as human beings, they could have been mistaken? Don’t you think it makes sense to investigate the matter objectively rather than concluding that all objections against it are “already in error”? Wouldn’t this be having the “open mind” that you ask us to cultivate?

The miraculous advent in the outermost fringe of the Roman Empire would not have stirred up humanity without being true. He would have been forgotten, just as several other Jewish 'messiahs' were!

Well, there were many reasons why Christianity spread, and none of them have anything to do with it being based on truth. Santa Claus is widely believed in too: some myths persist (especially when they serve ulterior motives), but some people see them for what they are.

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Sorry for having missed your point, Jdubla. I assumed you were discussing what I had actually written, instead of bringing up a new topic. I never said:

"if you're a christian, you shouldnt act this way, for jesus didnt"

I was merely expressing my amusement at Rex's vituperative comments, and pointing out that he was indeed following in his master's footsteps by expressing himself in that way. I never said he SHOULDN'T behave in that way. I fully understand that he has an excellent reason for behaving that way: he is a follower of Christ.

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Hi Rex,

I am amazed that, without ever having met me, you have been able to determine that I am a "know-nothing nit-wit dipstick greaseball" (I love the rhythm of that -- any rappers out there who can make use of it, please feel free!)

You have based this conclusion only on my having quoted the Bible and having stated that I think killing babies is immoral. What great powers of perception you must possess to gather so much from so little!

I think you missed my point, however; I was not whining that "Christians wouldn't do this or that". Quite the opposite: I was commending you on being so Christ-like since Christ was also into name-calling, as you yourself just pointed out.

And have you now run out of insults (as you did reasoning) so that you must now resort to threats of eternal punishment? How sad that religion can so warp a person, and cause them to spread hatred instead of love. You have reminded me what it was like to be a Witness, and how very lucky I was to have seen the light at a young age and to have escaped such an atmosphere of seething hatred towards others who refused to enter my darkness. Thanks, Rex. I hope you see the light too, some day. Then we'll share a laugh over this.

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Jdubla:

If you sincerely question how someone who doesn't believe in the Bible as God's word can refer to what it says, I will try to answer that question.

Let's assume that there is a book you don't believe is God's word, but other people do. Let's take the Book of Mormon for example. Let's say that it relates that God or Christ did certain things that you personally find repulsive and not fitting in with the character you attribute to them. If someone then asked you why you didn't believe the Book of Mormon was God's word, could you cite these passages as your reason without appearing "ridiculous"? I think so. In fact, I think the only way you could appear ridiculous in such a situation would be to say, "Oh, I can't tell you why I don't believe because that would involve citing parts of the book, and I can't do that because I don't believe in it."

Now let's look at the God of the Bible. I think your question is: If I don't believe such a being exists, how can I say that he did this or that? Well, obviously I don't believe he did this or that since I don't believe he exists. What I am doing is assuming the argument of the other side. This is a common way of discussing things (as is "playing devil's advocate" when you argue for the opposite point of view to find holes in your own point of view). Perhaps another analogy would help explain this:

Let's say that you don't believe in Zeus. When I ask you why, you say, "Well, for one reason he turned into a swan and raped Leda. I don't think that's an action a God would take." But then I reply: "That's not a valid argument, since you don't believe Zeus exists you can't cite any actions of his; a non-existent being can't perform any actions." I would be half right, but I'd be missing the point. The point isn't that you actually believe Zeus did this or that, the point is you don't believe in Zeus because those who do believe in him contend that he did this.

If the Bible says that Jesus called people "vipers," "fools," and "dogs," it little matters whether I personally believe in God, the Easter Bunny, or Humpty Dumpty; the Bible will still say what it says. The Bible is what most Christians (and certainly the Jehovah's Witnesses, whom this forum is supposed to be geared towards) use as the source of what Jesus did and said. Therefore it seems logical and appropriate to refer to it in this context. I just cannot see how it could be considered ridiculous. A discussion about what Jesus said WITHOUT referring to the Bible -- now THAT might be ridiculous.

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Quote from Rex:
************
” Hey Nitwit, No1youknownothing!
Are any of these people baby killers:
Isenhour, Churchill, MacArther, De Gaulle, Westmorland, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee?
What happened in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Tokyo and a thousand other cities?
The people of Germany put Hitler in power, the Japenese worshipped the Emperor and they paid the price for their folly. So did the Amalekites!
Yep, BABIES DIED, children died, mommas died, dads died, little old ladies died. What often happens in a WAR dipstick? The point is you cannot call the Generals or the soldiers murderers!
It is you various greaseballs who cannot understand that the barbarians in question threatened Israel's existence and were repeatedly warned by prophets sent to them. Their leaders CAUSED THE DEATHS by doing just waht you do, rebellion against God's soverignty, only they took it a step further by engaging in CHILD SACRIFICE, ENTOMBING CHILDREN IN WALLS FOR GOOD LUCK.
Nineveh REPENTED and was spared, as God offers to ALL WHO REPENT.
If you ex-dub, whining atheists would do some research instead of chanting your anti-God slander someone might care to answer your dumb questions!”

************

First of all, Rex, thank you for further verifying my hypothesis that Bible defenders turn to name-calling and personal attacks when they realize they have no rational or moral ground to stand on. It also verifies how very “Christ-like” such Christians really are (after all, Christ called the people he didn’t like all sorts of names too).

You asked if leaders in time of war were baby killers. Yes they were.

In individual conflicts it can be debated whether such incidental deaths were justified for the greater good. I would guess that someone like Lincoln was willing to take a calculated risk that civilians would be caught in the crossfire. But Lincoln never said: “kill all the babies, rip open pregnant women, and kill all the animals!” That is a very important difference.

Yes, any soldier who deliberately went out of his way to kill babies would be called a murderer.

So, INTENT is the first important difference between these leaders and the God of the Bible. Another very important difference is that if God has the three O’s, then he could’ve accomplished his ends through other means. He had 200 years to get rid of the Amalekites. Why didn’t he just make the women barren (as he is reported to have done to many women in the Bible)? Then they would’ve died out peacefully. Another idea would’ve been to simply “soften their hearts” (as he “hardened” the hearts of Pharaoh and his men). Then they wouldn’t have caused the Israelites any further trouble (which you indicated you thought was the real reason for the genocide). If someone in power has a choice between violent means and peaceful means to the same end, I would call him cruel if he chose the violent means.

As for blaming the Amalekites for child sacrifice: why would this upset God since his own order was to slaughter the Amalekite children? Would it make sense for God to say: “I’m going to kill your children because you kill your children”? Further, we read in the Bible where he actually REWARDED child sacrifice in the case of Abraham and Jephthah. We are told repeatedly in the Bible that the Israelites ended up being just as bad as the former inhabitants of the land they stole. So we cannot justify the genocide of the Amalekites by saying that they were evil and the Israelites were good.

Okay, which one of you atheists has been “chanting” and asking “dumb questions”? Or is Rex hearing voices? ;-)

Quote from Rex:
************
“Besides that, most of Christianity interprets the Bible in light of the messiah's character, and if a O.T. story does not reflect His revealed character it is REJECTED as NOT GOD'S COMMAND.”
************

This is VERY interesting! In other words, in case we can’t excuse God for murdering babies on the basis that babies are sometimes killed by humans, we can fall back on the argument that the whole story isn’t really true! But your “back up plan” is exactly my argument: the Bible as a whole isn’t true. God never told the Israelites to murder babies. I think the writer felt he had to somehow justify his countrymen’s barbaric atrocities and so he wrote that God told them to do it. Congratulations Rex; now you’re starting to think like us “dumb, nit-wit, know-nothing, hypocritical, lying, greaseball dipsticks with alcoholic and drug-addled brains”! You can start chanting along with the rest of us any time now (unless you can think up some more Christ-like things to say to us). :-)

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

It seems to me that what I predicted in my first post has come true: the defenders of the Bible have run out of arguments attempting to defend the indefensible and so have started engaging in personal attacks against the non-believers. Some of the non-believers have gotten sucked into the personality debate too.

Yes, I guess we are too harsh on those who believers in a "God of love" who murders babies. Forget about the harshness of murdering babies; I guess that's nothing compared to saying "I'm sick of you." God has a higher standard, and so can get away with murder, whereas we can't get away with a rude remark.

In any event, all the personal remarks are completely beside the point. There are jerks on both sides of any issue, and you can't decide which is right by counting the number of discourteous remarks made by each side.

Let's stick to the facts at issue:

1. Believers claim that a God of love inspired the writing of the Bible, which relates his deeds.

2. The Bible relates that God ordered the murdering of babies.

3. Anyone with half a milligram of moral maturity knows that murdering babies is immoral.

4. Therefore, either the Bible is not true, or God is immoral.

What do we have to offer in place of the cowardly worship of a baby-killing God? Well, wouldn't almost anything be better than that?

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Gumby said: "When I get discouraged at God for the things Kent has mentioned, and others, I also have to wonder what you guys who feel this way feel about creation and all it's design and wonders. No way there was not a loving designer and I think you guys truely feel the same way."

I, for one, truly do NOT feel the same way. Nature is red in tooth and claw. If there had been a loving designer there would be no carnivores, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, cancer, mental retardation… the list is virtually endless.

Gumby said: "The irritating part is why the two sides of God don't seem to jive. Living by the bibles standard also has to be agreed by all as a GOOD guide and agreed upon by many a learned man as a way of life even the best philosophers could't have come up with."

This definitely does NOT have to be agreed to by all! I have read the Bible cover to cover once, and am half way through doing it again, and I would NEVER choose this collection of barbaric atrocities as a "good guide". Yes, the best philosophers (and even some not so great philosophers) have come up with better guides.

89

God not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it

by Kent in

jw
friends

god not only condoned mass murder, he ordered it .

i notice that many people here have claimed that "god is not a murderer.

god does not condone or plan the brutal murder of children!

no1youknow

Rex, you say we don't know why God ordered the murdering of babies (and so you want us to assume that God must’ve had a good reason). But we HAVE been given the reason for the murdering of babies: just read the previous verse:

1Sam:15:2: Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
1Sam:15:3: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

So God wanted to wreak this vengeance upon them for what their ancestors had done to the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. When God supposedly spoke these words, it was more than 200 years after the Israelites had escaped from Egypt. The individual Amalekites who had fought to protect their homeland from the invading horde of Israelites were long dead. Their children were long dead. Their grandchildren were long dead. Their great-grandchildren were long dead. Their nearest descendants still living at that time would've been their great-great-grandchildren. At least four generations of Amalekites had come and gone before God chose the fifth generation for punishment. Furthermore, the fifth generation would've been middle-aged by this time: "Infants and sucklings" would've been at least sixth generation. This exceeds God's promise to punish up to the third and fourth generation (Ex. 20:5).

Today this would be equivalent to the United States declaring war on the Native Americans for having fought to defend their homeland from the invading Europeans over 200 years ago. If today the U.S. military were to launch massive attacks on the "Indian Reservations" throughout the country, slaughtering all of the men, women, children, babies, and animals it could find, who would not call this unspeakably evil? Yet when we find the very same actions described in the "Holy Bible" we say that they were somehow justified. Let me clue-in Bible-defenders: murdering babies (even your enemy's babies) is NEVER justified. It COULD never have been justified, and it never WILL BE justified. This means that the God of the Bible was not a just God; he was a fiend: PURE EVIL PERSONIFIED.

To claim that we cannot judge God is to take a stand on quicksand. You have already judged God as soon as you say “God is good.” Unless this statement means “God is God” (which is just as meaningless as saying “blah is blah”), you have taken a certain standard called “goodness” and held it up beside God and personally judged that God meets (or exceeds) that standard. So, you have judged God.

Unless God has spoken to you directly, you must have also made a personal judgment regarding the Bible. I guess you decided that you would believe that it was “inspired” by God, and contained a fairly accurate account of his activities.

But now it seems that you have forgotten that you had previously personally judged God and the Bible. So that now you think such judgments are inappropriate. When people point out the moral outrages committed by God in the Bible, you find yourself forced to defend them by any means in order to “save face” regarding your premature judgment of the Bible as a whole. It would be more honest to say: “Oh, I thought the Bible was the inspired word of an all-good God, but I didn’t realize that it said he had ordered the murder of infants! That puts a whole new light on the matter! I guess I’m not infallible, and I made a mistake.” I have found this to be the honest reaction of people with a little bit of humility who are really serious about truth and ethics. While others, who cannot admit their mistakes will desperately attempt to defend the indefensible and will engage in personal attacks against those who point out the truth. I know I was in that situation until I finally had to yield to the overwhelming evidence and eat some crow -- it wasn’t such a bad meal, and I’ve felt much better ever since.